Lorain hopes to save money with traffic signal changes on Broadway, throughout city

By
Richard Payerchin, The Morning Journal

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

LORAIN — Changes continue for Lorain’s traffic signals as the city administration looks for ways to improve traffic flow downtown.
On April 23, city workers set up barricades and covered most of the stop lights at the intersection of Broadway, Elyria Avenue and 17th Street.
The three roads come together to form a triangle-shaped island in the middle of the road. The barricades and traffic light changes essentially closed a short stretch of East 17th Street, which forms one side of the triangle by connecting Broadway and Elyria Avenue.
In December 2013, Lorain City Council voted to close the section of road.
The move eliminates the need for traffic lights at the intersections of 17th and the two other streets, Lorain Safety-Service Director Robert Fowler said previously.
Workers from the city’s Public Property Department spent at least an hour setting up traffic barricades and using a bucket truck to reach the overhead lights, most of which were wrapped in black plastic.
“All those heads will be bagged, they’re not needed now, not used and probably in about two months or three months, we’ll go ahead and actually remove them out of service completely,” said Hal Kendrick, public property manager for Lorain.
The intersection required 20 separate red-yellow-green traffic lights, mounted on poles and booms, to regulate cars and trucks driving through the intersection.
At least 14 of the 20 traffic lights at the intersections of 17th Street and Broadway, and at 17th Street and Elyria Avenue, were covered and removed from service. The city plan was to keep the lights at the Y-shaped meeting of Broadway and Elyria Avenue.
The work was a continuation of last year’s efforts to begin updating and removing traffic lights in Lorain. Replacing the city’s outdated signals can cost up to $200,000 each, Fowler said, and Lorain does not have money to replace unneeded traffic lights.
“This is part of our warrant study for traffic,” Kendrick said. “This intersection was deemed not warranted or not needed.”
The intersection of Broadway, Elyria Avenue and 17th Street was part of the first round of traffic signal warrant studies, but is one of the last ones for the city to change the light pattern, Kendrick said.
In summer 2013, URS Corp. of Akron released its study of traffic control signals on Broadway and 28th Street.
Based on counts of cars and trucks, there was enough traffic to justify nine of the signals; another 16 are not warranted, according to the results of the study.
The intersections with enough traffic to warrant a stoplight are Broadway and: Erie Avenue; Elyria Avenue; and 21st, 28th, 30th, 33rd and 39th streets. The intersections of 28th Street and Elyria Avenue, and 28th Street and Fulton Road, also had enough traffic to need a stoplight, according to the study.
The remaining streets did not have enough car and truck flow to require stop lights, according to the results of the study.
The general plan has been met with mixed reaction from city residents, based on safety concerns about potential danger to pedestrians if the lights are removed.